Kaali Gajar Halwa: A Seasonal Winter Dessert Made with Black Carrots
A First Taste That Changed How I Think About Gajar Halwa I tasted kaali gajar halwa for the first time this winter, and it immediately disrupted my idea of what gajar halwa is supposed to be. Until then, I knew it only by reputation—mentioned occasionally as something darker, heavier, older—but never as something people still cooked. When I finally ate it, the reaction wasn’t nostalgia or surprise. It was recognition. This felt like a halwa shaped by a different logic of cooking altogether. When Black Carrots Appear — and Disappear Kaali gajars arrive quietly in winter markets. One week they’re absent, and then sometime in December they appear at the edge of vegetable stalls—dark, almost purple-black, stacked in small, uneven piles beside the bright red carrots everyone reaches for. Vendors don’t point them out. They aren’t explained. They’re bought mostly by people who already know. By late January or early February, they begin to disappear again. Firm to the touch and not immediately...
